Employment Trends Index Declines 0.45 Points

The Conference Board Employment Treads Index fell 0.45 percentage points to 100.95 in September, pointing to continued slow job growth for the rest of the year. However, the figure is up 4.4 percentage points from September 2010.

“Despite the somewhat better than expected employment numbers released on Friday, the decline in the Employment Trends Index in September suggests that weak job growth is likely to continue for the rest of 2011,” said Gad Levanon, director of macroeconomic research at The Conference Board. “Even as the economy remains slow going into the next year, we do not expect a major acceleration in layoffs because employers have kept their workforce quite lean since the 2008/09 recession.”

Six out of the eight components that make up the Employment Trends Index were negative in September, including the Consumer Confidence Survey, the percentage of people reporting that jobs are hard to get and people taking part-time work for economic reasons.